Creature Comforts: How The Contemporary Home Has Evolved

Comfort and home have become two words that are synonymous with each other. We expect our homes to provide comfort, warmth, and generally uplift our mood. Early man lived in caves and makeshift structures in forests. Comfort wasn’t so highly placed on the list of things the home had to achieve. The concept of comfortable homes came into being at the existence of households. This dates back to the times of ancient Greece, Egypt, and the United Kingdom where the oldest settlements have been found. It was the first time humans made soft floors, sheeted soft walls, smooth edges, used softer stone and stuffed furniture to be more comfortable than durable. These creature comforts have evolved drastically into the contemporary era. Let’s take a look at how just one decade has changed the way we implement comfort into our homes. 

 

Turns out, we’re still animals

Take a few minutes out of your day, to research the interior of homes has evolved over the past 10 years. You’ll see that designers have come to accept, we are still animals. We may walk around on two legs, wear three-piece suits and gorgeous evening gowns, but we’re still animals that need a few things in our daily living spaces. We still want to feel like we’re connected to the outside. We want more vegetation and a hark back to the way our ancestors used to live.

Natural light

The fixed frame window has become more common in 2020. Think about how homes have looked for many decades. The classic four-position windows have made the home’s natural light all too predictable. You have small capsules of light filtering through the home but they are often joined by curtains and square frames. Fixed frame windows, on the other hand, are giant single-piece sheets of tempered glass, that have replaced a section of a wall if not all of it. This allows natural light to positively flood and engulfs the home. 

 

More greenery

The topic of mental health has risen to the top of society’s talking points. With 8 billion people on the planet, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with the feeling of being just another soul lost at sea. What grounds us all is a feeling of being part of something bigger. Mother earth has always been a safe haven we return to when we feel sick and tired of modern life. That’s why more plants, flowers, vegetables, and fruit, are being used as decoration in our homes. With more green in the home, we feel just that little bit closer to the natural world.

 

Without missing a beat

What is comfort without the ease of use? This is where the heart of the contemporary comfort movement is based. We want our homes to warm up quicker than ever before, but we also don’t want to have to force the central heating into action, manually. We also want the mood of our homes to change, but not have to physically do it. Modern technology has given homeowners the option of doing such things, without missing a beat.

 

 

Voice-activated lighting

‘Smart homes’ are a real thing. In home design circles, it was pretty much an accepted fact that in a decade or two, we will look back on homes that didn’t have connectivity as modern equivalents of caves. Voice-activated lighting is one of the truest examples of how modern technology has brought a new level of comfort to our lives. You can be anywhere in the room, and dim the lights, change the color of the lighting, brighten it and activate table lamps independently from the ceiling lights. 

You need only connect the light bulbs to your WiFi router or to your smartphone via BlueTooth. Smart lighting can be set for your alarm clock, set to automatically turn on at a certain time such as the evening, and can be set to only be commanded by your particular word commands. 

 

Soothing heat

Is there anything worse than a cold floor in the home? There are other things around the home that annoy us, like cold metal towel bars, inefficient windows letting all the heat escape, and floorboards that creak. But, cold floors cannot be avoided. Unless you know how to levitate, cold floors will not allow you to walk as you please. That’s why Underfloor Heating Suppliers are being sought after more and more. The technology has moved ahead so far, that in 2020, you can fit the parts yourself. You can buy UFH kits as separate parts, mix and match to create a floor that is affordable to fit and use every day. Now you can walk around on your tiled kitchen and bathroom floors barefoot and not be forced to wear socks indoors. This technology can be easy via touchscreen thermostats as well as via smartphone apps.

 

 

Patios are more resistant 

When we consider patios of the previous decade, we come to the conclusion that the designers and many brands were trying to update the concept, but didn’t go far enough. Thankfully, in 2020, we’re set to see a renewed push for better, more weather-resistant, and usable patios. Using a mixture of granite and honed sandstone, modern tiles are being made anti-slip yet soft enough to walk barefoot on. Granite is hard on our soles and is slippery when wet. Honed sandstone is soft but not that resistant to rain. A mixture of these stones makes for an aesthetically pleasing tile, that is more practical than both. 

Thanks to the shock of Covid-19, we as human beings are appreciating our gardens and patios a lot more. They’re not just value-increasers for our home, they increase the value of our lifestyle and living standard. 

 

 

Double, triple, or quattro?

Double-glazed windows used to be all the rage at the turn of the millennium. The technology for manufacturing them had become cheaper and just about any business could offer homeowners their very own set of double-glazed energy-saving windows. Not only were they adding more safety to your home as they were more difficult to break, but they offered longevity with regard to weather damage. 

Triple-glazing became very popular post-2010. Windows could now be made thinner, stronger, and denser. Yet, the aesthetic quality of the windows continued to be improved as well. All the benefits of double-glazed windows were simply amped up further.

In 2020, quattro-glazed windows are set to become the new norm. Not only do they shut out exterior noise so you can have a quieter home. But, they also provide much better energy efficiency, therefore, lower energy bills. They also provide more strength as you can imagine, against weather, burglars, and insects. The question on your lips is probably, “but won’t it mean my windows are heavier?”. Thankfully, no. With the use of high-quality aluminum instead of steel, quadruple-glazed windows weigh about as heavy as double-glazed windows; generally speaking. 

 

 

Leather is out for good?

During the previous decade, leather was the supreme commander of the living room. There wasn’t a home that could call itself modern, that didn’t have a leather sofa, chair and or Ottoman. The reason for this was, it was seen as a prestigious material, something that only the very best sofa brands would use. However, what the brands now use is not always determined by designers. Consumers have so much spending power, that buying a living room sofa is not a once in a lifetime purchase. Many people want to have different sofas every few years. So what’s changed?

Fabric sofas are back in the mainstream fold and it looks like, in 2020, they’re here to stay. The most compelling argument for fabric sofas is the fact that they’re simply more comfortable. Aesthetics mean nothing if you don’t enjoy your home. Velvet has become one of the top choices for sofa upholstery this year. Even synthetics like nylon and acrylic are taking a back seat to material like cotton and linen. 

 

 

Easy and secure locks

Why has a keychain of jangling keys stuffed tightly in your pocket these days? One of the things that have vastly improved in the contemporary home, is smart security. Now there are options to fit fingerprint door locks which make it far quicker and easier to gain access to your home. When you have hands full of shopping or you want to wear an outfit without pockets, you can simply use your registered fingerprint to unlock the front or back door. 

This technology is waterproof and has a surface that is electronic and water-resistant. Brands design locks that have hoods over the top of the fingerprint reader but they also use contemporary surfaces that rain droplets simply slide off of. You will need to make sure your hands are clean so the reader can recognize you but it’s much quicker than trying to put a key in the door when it’s pitch black outside.

The contemporary home is rapidly evolving to become far more comfortable than ever before. It’s quite an interesting time as old and new ideas are merging together. Fixed frame windows allow more natural light in but you also have electronic blinds that you can use to filter how much you want.